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Contrails of Globalization and the Viewfrom the Ground: An Essay on Isolationin East-Central SiberiaCraig Campbell

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Polar Geography, 2003, 27, No. 2, pp. 97-120.Copyright © 2003 by V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

CONTRAILS OF GLOBALIZATION AND THE VIEW FROM THE GROUND: AN ESSAY ON ISOLATION IN EAST-CENTRAL SIBERIA1

Craig CampbellDepartment of Sociology, University of Alberta,

Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2E3

Abstract: This paper examines the conditions behind the tragic situation of isolationin remote rural settlements of post-Soviet Siberia. Ethnography, archival research, and aliterature review are used to show how the landscape itself poses formidable impedi-ments to bettering the lives of indigenous Evenkis living in one northern district of Kras-noyarsk Kray. Over one or two generations, traditional Evenki systems of mobility werereconfigured according to mechanized vehicles, centralized settlements, and a heavy reli-ance on non-local goods. The fragility of the Soviet system for operating northern settle-ments can be taken as a general warning to other sub-Arctic and Arctic communities inthe circumpolar North.

In 2003, indigenous Siberian peoples living in remote villages and settlementshave little or no access to means of travel and subsequently are suffering from a vari-ety of problems directly associated with isolation. The remains of Soviet-era settle-ments and their requisite infrastructures are material reminders of a built environmentthat has failed to adapt to the conditions of market capitalism and are poorly suited toprovide for the needs of remotely located rural peoples in the post-Soviet era. Thesesettlements were designed to function utilizing the redistributive inputs of fuel andsubsidies associated with Soviet socialism and now fail to work in their absence.Soviet settlements in rural Siberia are de-localized (Pelto, 1973) technological sys-tems, now precariously situated because of their dependence upon transfer payments,non-monetary subsidies, and centralized bureaucracies that no longer exist. The post-Soviet landscape is littered with a crippled industrial manufacturing infrastructure,confounding the possibility for rural peoples to develop healthy communities.

This paper explores the dramatic resilience of Soviet Siberia’s built environmentsand landscapes by presenting a history organized around mobility, where travel—andthe inability to travel—is taken as a key experience for both indigenous northernersand newcomers. Through field work, archival research, and literature review, it isshown how features of the Soviet landscape endure into the early years of the21st century as dysfunctional artifacts. I argue that the current predicament ofde-mobilization and isolation in remote villages of central Siberia is a result ofenduring dysfunctional landscapes and the difficulty of negotiating mobility within

1Research that contributed to this paper was undertaken with financial support from the Associationof Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (NSTP grant), the Canadian Circumpolar Institute (C/Bargrant), Social Science Humanities Research Council Ph.D. fellowship, and from Derek Sayer (CanadaResearch Chair in Theory and Culture, studentship). There are many people in Siberia as well as in Canadawho have helped me in this work. My thanks and appreciation go to them, especially Dima, Kostia,Nevolin, Branat, and others whose stories I have related here.

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these landscapes. Although my research is specific to the Evenki Autonomous Okrug(district) (Fig. 1) in central Siberia (hereafter referred to as Evenkia or EAO), I willdraw on examples from other areas of the Russian North and the circumpolar Arctic,all of which have extensive rural areas and which suffer not only from being geo-graphic marginality but also tend to be theoretically marginalized in mainstream dis-courses on globalization.

My discussion focuses on the history of travel and mobility in the experience ofindigenous Evenkis in Evenkia,2 with primary reference to the district administrativecenter of Tura and one of the small settlements of the district, known as Ekonda.

2Early 20th century literature refers to the Evenki peoples (among others) as “Tungus” and describesthem as hunters and reindeer herders of the taiga. Tungus, however, is not an ethnonym and is regarded bymost Evenkis as a pejorative name. I only use the word here in reference to historical usage.

Fig. 1. General location map of the Evenki Autonomous Okrug.

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Although these two places make easy points of reference, I also consider the places inbetween as equally important. In fact, it is the places in-between that normally eludetotalizing academic discourses, and it is against the facility and convenience of suchdiscourses that I attempt to frame this work. I provide an ethnohistorical study thatprivileges travel and mobility3 over stability and immutable structures, illuminatingboth the settlements and the forest (les) to comprise the geographic, social, and histor-ical landscape of this study. I use specific examples from Ilimpii Rayon (county), thenorthernmost of three rayons in Evenkia.4 After establishing this history I discuss myideas about the ongoing relevance of de-mobilization and dysfunction in the circum-polar North. Finally, drawing on a more general theoretical discourse on globalizationI will situate my own research and propose a space that may be useful for others try-ing to represent remote arctic and sub-arctic places.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE EVENKI SYSTEM OF PATHS PRIOR TO THE SOVIET ERA

This section provides a brief and general introduction to the history of Evenkipeoples of east-central Siberia, framed through the metaphor of mobility, one of thepredominant ways that Evenkis experience and understand their world. Mobilityworks as a meaningful focus to study Evenki histories because their traditional econo-mies were centered around the seasonal cycle of reindeer herding, hunting, and fish-ing. Reindeer, sleighs, and tents are core symbols of Evenki identity and the idea oftraveling through the taiga is as meaningful to Evenkis in urban centers as it is forthose living in settlements and reindeer camps.

Evenki form one of the many indigenous minority groups in Siberia and the Rus-sian Far East. Today they live in many places throughout European and Asiatic Rus-sia, although before the 20th century their traditional homelands were generallylocated between the Yenisey River and the Pacific Ocean. Prior to colonization andlater Soviet modernization/industrialization, Evenkis were primarily engaged in moreor less nomadic reindeer-herding economies. After generations upon generations oftravel, their experience of the world came to be interwoven with their own paths ofhistory marked along both familiar and unknown trails and routes.

In creating this ethnography around travel as both an experience and metaphor, Ihave appropriated an idea from the work of Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogoroff—aRussian ethnographer working in the Baikal area of central Siberia at the turn of the19th and 20th centuries. I am particularly interested in his characterization of the pat-terns of mobility of the Tungus, something he has called a “system of paths.” In hisbook Psychomental Complex of the Tungus (1935, p. 87), he wrote that:

3In northern Canada, “the bush” is often used as shorthand for the location of a broad range of activi-ties and identity markers. In Siberia, the Russian words used most commonly by Evenkis to refer to the siteof many of their activities is taiga [taiga] or forest [les].

4Traditional homelands of Evenki-speaking peoples include much of Central and East Siberia, as wellas the Russian Far East. Although clan names are rarely used to distinguish individual groups in the 21stcentury (in fact, most Evenkis I have met have no idea what clan their ancestors belonged to), Evenkis con-tinue to make reference to geographic locales (such as Ilimpii) to differentiate themselves from others.

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In accordance with the acquired knowledge of the primary milieu the Tungushave worked out their system of migrations, also imposed by their chief indus-try of hunting and reindeer breeding. . . . We have seen that the Tungus havecreated a system of communications, the paths. Indeed, in the eyes of the peo-ple accustomed to the railways and artificially erected high-roads with bridges[and] dams, the system of Tungus paths would not seem to be a technicalachievement, a cultural adaptation. However, it is not so when one looks moreclosely at the phenomenon.

The intention behind this passage seems to be to expel Eurocentric notions ofsuperiority by showing the logic and art of the Tungus economy—in which mobilitywas central. In my own work I have used this idea of a system of paths to describe thesubject of an ethnography of travel.5 My adaptation of Shirokogoroff’s “Tungus sys-tem of paths” makes a useful metaphor that recognizes the existence of very differentunderstandings of territory, place, and practice. Paths chosen by Evenkis existed incontrast to those of the Russian invaders, traders, and missionaries as well as otherindigenous Siberians. In addition, their travel practices have converged and divergedover time with these other peoples. While not all Evenkis have the same experiencesof travel, the ways in which they travel and understand their own mobile positionstend to be interwoven in issues of community, history, and identity and are more con-sistent in relation to one another than they are with other non-Evenki people. Byframing it in this way, my argument is meant to ensure that the system of paths resistsbeing de-historicized and typified as a complex of unchanging cultural practices overtime that are neither immutable nor rigid. The danger of this has recently been out-lined in Dipesh Chakrabarty’s book Provincializing Europe, where he notes that the“historicist or ethnographic mode of viewing” tends to “convert objects, institutions,and practices with which we have lived relationships into relics of other times” (Urry,2000, p. 243). By framing this caveat through the metaphor of a menacing anachro-nism, Chakrabarty reminds us that Indian peasants, like nomadic reindeer herders, arealways in danger of appearing as though relics from another time.

By focusing on mobility and the Evenkis’ system of paths this work is able toshow how Evenki peoples’ autonomy over such a system was seriously eroded in thelatter half of the 20th century. Mobility, as such, becomes a key tool in historicalunderstanding. The importance of travel to the constitution of social life is noted byJohn Urry, who wrote that in the mobility of people, ideas, and objects “social life andcultural identity are recursively formed and reformed” (Urry, 2000, p. 49). Urry’spoint is to move attention away from the rigidity of the center. Zigmunt Bauman(1998) also explored the idea of mobility and used it as a core idiom for describing aprocess of globalization. “What appears as globalization for some,” noted Bauman,“means localization for others” (Bauman, 1998, p. 2). This formulation works well inthe context of central Siberia, as rural Evenkis might be considered “locals” who oncemight have been more accurately classified as globals. What is interesting (and con-founding) is just how they came to be localized and what it is that prevents them fromdoing very much about it.

5An approach to ethnography that focuses on travel is certainly not novel. Most recently Petra Reth-mann has used this to great effect in her book Tundra Passages (2000).

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As this paper will show, mobility for Evenkis, until the 1990s, commonly playedan important role in the formulation of identities. “Today’s existence,” continuedBauman “is stretched along the hierarchy of the global and the local, with globalfreedom of movement signaling social promotion, advancement and success, andimmobility exuding the repugnant odor of defeat, failed life and being left behind”(Bauman 1998, p. 121). Although he situates this hierarchy as a novel development atthe end of the 20th century, it sounds remarkably similar to the way that early Sovietbureaucrats understood life in the central Siberian taiga. Whereas Bauman locatedmobility and immobility (global and local) within his globalism heuristic, John Urryallocated to mobility a much more important role; he found that the metaphor worksto place attention on networks and borders and serves as a contemporary challenge tothe very practice of sociology (Urry, 2000, p. 48).6 This focus on peripheries, bordercrossings, and connections resonates with force in the context of northern industrial-ization and the introduction of mechanized travel. The rise of mechanized mobility incentral Siberia cannot be understood as a simple case of socialist development poli-cies. Since the late 1920s Evenkis participated, to varying degrees and on multiplelevels, in the creation of a system of paths that worked within the logic of the Sovietstate. It is the artifacts of this very system that, years after the collapse of the socialiststate, no longer function and pose serious impediments to Evenkis’ mobility in the21st century. The contemporary Evenki system of paths is characteristically heteroge-neous but marked by a lack of mobility in comparison with many other nationalitiesin Russia. On a global scale, rural Evenkis appear to be marginalized locals, excludedfrom transnational flows of ideas, objects, and people.

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF MOBILITY IN CENTRAL SIBERIA

Prior to the arrival of mechanized vehicles, mobility choices for the Ilimpii Even-kis, in Central Siberia, were partially governed by the range of economic possibilitiesheld in the seasonal round. As is common throughout the sub-Arctic, great seasonalvariations limit the sorts of activity that can occur at any given time. Prior to thearrival of the Russians, who traveled principally by river, the primary mode of travelin east-central Siberia was either on foot or with the aid of reindeer. The Russianethnographer Glafira Vasilevich (1969) made reference to a range of travel practicesamong the Evenkis which coincided with the number of reindeer owned. TheEvenkis’ mixed, forest-based economies generally necessitated a degree of flexiblemobility. For those breeding reindeer there was a constant need to travel to new pas-tures. Within the realm of reindeer breeding there existed different needs as well,which were especially dependent on the size of the herd. It seems that the majority ofEvenkis raised reindeer herds to enhance their mobility and to provide an emergencyfood source. Despite this being the most common form of reindeer husbandry, someEvenkis raised larger herds of deer for meat production. The accumulation of wealthin the form of reindeer engendered stratified social relations. Smaller herds of rein-deer were composed of enough animals to meet the transport needs of the family.Larger herds, however, provided for user networks that extended beyond the families’

6Ann-Fienup Riordan (1994), several years earlier in her ethnography of Yup’ik Eskimo cosmology,termed this “boundaries and passages.”

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needs. This meant that “surplus” deer could be “rented” out, given as gifts, lent, and(though rarely) sold.7

Evenkis who had no deer (literally, deerless: bezolen’ye) were considered impov-erished by the Russian colonizers as well as in Russian and Soviet ethnographies.Vasilevich wrote that

Evenki reindeer impoverishment [maloolennost’] in the former Turukhanskregion . . . was isolated in a particular group of Evenkis on lake Chirinda. A.Chekanov and F. Miller in the 19thC. with difficulty found reindeer among theEvenki of the upper Vilyuy. This last group, occupied with fishing, weresingled out from their group who were nomadizing with their reindeer.(Vasilevich, 1969, p. 52, footnote)

If reindeerlessness was necessarily a condition of poverty in pre-colonial times, itis clear that the accumulation of wealth came to be associated with the size of reindeerherds, especially in the Soviet era when census-takers took note not only of peopleand their clan/tribe affiliations but also the number of deer that they owned. Sovietethnographers and ideologues, in an effort to apply social class analysis to the indige-nous peoples, read this situation as one of exploitation. The wealthy herd owner wasthought to control the labor potential of impoverished Evenkis through debt slavery.Based on questionable estimations of herd size and ownership it was later calculatedwho were the wealthy oppressors, or kulaks, and who were the oppressed poor.8

The variety of economic pursuits within the taiga environment resulted in an equalvariety of travel practices.

Permanent tracks in the taiga were only to be found at the approaches to thetrading points. Migrations were always in the direction of new places. Summertracks usually passed over watersheds and winter tracks along rivers, throughthe tundra, only deviating in the case of mountain passes. (Vasilevich andSmolyak, 1964, p. 630)

The mobility of Ilimpii Evenkis was not simply a function of their economy; therewere numerous factors that shaped the ways in which they traveled through east-cen-tral Siberia. Using archival documents associated with expeditions, trading posts, andchurches, ethnographers have described the Ilimpii taiga as a tremendously active andchanging landscape. Shirokogoroff suggests that for the Tungus of Trans-Baykalia,human-animal relations “in taiga life compel the Tungus, first of all, to know everyvalley thoroughly, and also to know which animals inhabit it. He must know where hemay travel without annoying other animals, just as he does in reference to other ethni-cal groups” (Shirokogoroff, 1929, p. 43). One type of movement in the colonialperiod, described by Vladilen A. Tugolukov (1985), is based on both reindeer andpedestrian mobility. Although some of the reasons for migrations and diasporasremain obscure, at least some of the most common ones are known. Vasilevich wrote

7David G. Anderson (2002b, p. 143) has referred to this as “lucrative mobility.”8As the intensity of Soviet industrialization in the north increased in the 1960s and 1970s, the wealth

of state farms was directly linked to the size of reindeer herds. Rather than democratizing herd ownership,state planners consolidated herds and re-located power to centralized bureacracies.

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that at the end of the 19th century, Evenkis living in remote regions of the Lower andPodkamennaya Tunguskas remained relatively unknown to the Russians, whoseexpeditions at the beginning of the 20th century had not yet penetrated deeply intoEvenki territory: “There had been no meeting with Evenkis in the upper parts of thePodkamennaya and Nizhnyaya Tunguskas and the region between them” (Vasilevich,1969, p. 32). This anonymity, however, is not equivalent to ignorance. Indeed, suchremotely located Evenkis, because of pre-established indigenous trade routes, wouldhave been well aware of the Europeans who had been in the area for over two hundredyears.

While the Russians generally stuck to the navigable river systems, Evenkis hadthe knowledge and technological skills to efficiently travel across the taiga. The forestwas, without a doubt, the realm of Evenkis. The seeming isolation of remotely locatedEvenkis was, in part, a strategy of avoidance. Although the Tsar’s tribute collectorshad methods of ensuring that yearly dues of pelts were paid, their spheres of influencemust have been highly limited.9 The winter forts along the rivers were not, after all,the only points to acquire essential foods like flour and tea and equipment like rifleshells and canvas. Warfare and violent conflict were also reasons for migrations ofEvenkis in east-central Siberia.10 Nonetheless, internecine wars that occurred in east-central Siberia remain unclear markers of territoriality due to frequent migrations ofpeople. Rather than imagining stable geographies of territorial conflict, the landscapeis better understood in the context of shifting regimes of migration and travel.Tugolukov observed, for example, an insurrection by local Evenkis in Yessey in thewinter of 1682–1683. After the people in the fort were killed, the majority of theYessey Tungus moved (nomadized away [otkochevali]) to the North and the East(Tugolukov, 1985, p. 177). This reflects conditions whereby territorial allegianceswere less than stable and Evenkis were able to move with relative freedom to otherplaces.

Despite resistance and avoidance strategies, the necessity of tribute payment andthe growing demand for trade goods overshadowed the autonomy of most Evenkis.Vasilevich and Smolyak (1964, p. 643) wrote that “[a]ccording to legends of the Yeni-sey Evenks, their ancestors lived in clans. . .[which] possessed a ‘river,’ that is to sayterritory.” In addition to the reasons mentioned above, with the movements spurred onby disease occupation and control of territory may not have been especially stable.Perhaps in response to the increasing power of the state, it seems likely that territorialboundaries began to develop around trap lines and areas that were rich in fur-bearinganimals.

Archival records and early colonial reports clearly document that the CentralSiberian Plateau region was a well-traversed and culturally mixed landscape prior tothe arrival of the Europeans. The difficulty in locating Evenki people among othernations in this region is evidenced in the typically confused and conflicting reports ofearly explorers, traders, bureaucrats, clergymen, and ethnographers. The task of figur-ing out who was who and who was living where is confounded by a fluidity of identi-ties and mobile households. The attempt to fix and enforce boundaries and organiza-tional structures was an objective of the new colonial government. Referring to

9It is widely reported that the Cossaks took hostages to ransom payments of tribute (Fisher, 1943).10Such conflict is noted in Gurvich’s (1977) Culture of the Northern Yakut Reindeer Herders as well

as Tugolukov’s (1985) Tunguses (Evenki and Eveni) of Middle and Western Siberia.

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Shirokogoroff’s early work in the study of Tungus social organization, DmitriiShimkin (1990, p. 319) observed that “Tungus (Evenki) clans had strong leadership,including shamans, and clan ceremonials, but were loosely associated with territoriesand lacked clan sanctuaries.” In the context of Tsarist bureaucracy, Evenki clans andtents came to be more associated with administrative units spatially bound in territo-ries. It would be a mistake, however, to explain this away as an inevitable result ofstate hegemony. In many instances Evenkis manipulated Russian law and disciplinein their own local political struggles (Slezkine, 1994; Ssorin-Chaikov, 1998).

All of this translates into a somewhat shifting set of traditional Evenki practicesand identities during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The most common assess-ment of the changing cultural landscape through this period suggests that “the Evenkimobile economy was one of reindeer-facilitated hunting, trapping, fishing, andtrading” (Anderson, 2000a, p. 226). Gail Fondahl aptly generalized the situationwhen she wrote that “[i]n the tayga no single activity (hunting, fishing, or reindeerherding) traditionally sustained a family, obshchina or clan; rather, a combination ofthese activities provided for both subsistence and commercial/trade needs” (Fondahl,1998, p. 113). As the needs changed over time, Evenkis adapted and altered theirapproaches to work. It is much more reasonable to speak of a shifting, mixed reper-toire of Evenki practices than to essentialize any single practice out of time.

Prior to the arrival of the Tsar’s tribute collectors to the Central Siberian Plateau atthe end of the seventeenth century most Evenkis traveled nomadically throughout thetaiga recognizing more or less fluid boundaries negotiated between one-another aswell as other Siberian peoples. Through the Tsarist imperial era, their movementcame to be more and more associated with trapping areas, sites of tribute payment, aswell as the locations of Russian Orthodox missions. In the early 20th century, admin-istrative boundaries rose in importance, leading to the territorial markers that haveprevailed for the last 50 years or so. These boundaries determine spheres of Evenkisocial relations and experience in the first 10 years of the post-Soviet period. Prior tothe establishment of these territorial markers, the scope of mobility in the taiga wasmuch broader. Before exploring the broad and sudden imposition of a Soviet land-scape, I will first consider the more gradual changes that occurred through the Rus-sian Imperial era and the time of revolution and civil war.

The imperial expansion of European nations in the post-enlightenment era was notrestricted to Western Europe. Russia also intended, and was in a position, to expandits empire. Expeditions and military forces, centralized in Moscow under the Tsar’scontrol, were sent east to annex adjacent frontier lands. There were, however, signifi-cant distinctions between early Russian imperialism and that of other Europeannations. The nature of colonization was characterized by the Tsar’s interest in extract-ing wealth in the form of animal hides from the vast taiga regions that lay to the eastof the Ural Mountains. This practice was contrary to the pattern of colonialism inBritish North America, where colonization after 1867 was as much about settlementand nation building as it was about the establishment of a resource colony. With histributary imperative, the Tsar laid explicit policy dictating the terms on which“natives” were to be treated. Particular emphasis was placed on facilitating their abil-ity to pay tribute. Another difference in the character of Siberian colonization was thatthe northern Siberian taiga offered little potential for agriculture and was a poor draw

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for settlers who might otherwise have competed for territory with the various indige-nous groups.

Resistance to the collection of tribute and to the state’s intermittent attempts toreorganize Evenki political relations occasionally resulted in bloodshed. Such violentresistance is well reported in other areas of Siberia (Tugolukov, 1985; Forsyth, 1992;Slezkine, 1994). A common Evenki scenario of resistance to the state was avoidance,by traveling deeper into the taiga to escape tribute collectors. The mobility of Evenkiswas a constant irritation to the colonial administration’s fledgling bureaucracy. In1906 S. Patkanov wrote, that “[i]n their travels the Tungus pay no attention . . . to Dis-trict boundaries . . . [and, in the South] they’re not even shy of the borders of thestate.” Patkanov’s dissatisfaction was clear, especially as he proceeds to describe theway in which nomadism was so confounding to tribute collectors (Vasilevich, 1969,p. 6). In another instance, the ethnographer Ivan Mainov (writing at the end of the19th Century) noted that Evenkis “wander almost all year across unknowable forestthickets” (quoted in Ssorin-Chaikov, 1998, p. 29).11

The European demand for fine pelts spurred an active local economy independentof Moscow’s tribute system which had, in fact, preceded the arrival of tribute collec-tors. Both established trading posts and mobile traders became an integral part of thetaiga landscape. Tugolukov (1963, p. 18) notes that many Yakut (Sakha)12 tradersmoved through the taiga as well, offering an alternative to the Russian traders andtrading posts — although not necessarily better terms. In this era, Evenkis’ seasonalrounds were expanded to include trapping for tribute and trade, traveling to summertrade fairs, and, occasionally, pilgrimages to Orthodox Christian churches. The politi-cal, economic, and spiritual landscape of east-central Siberia was entering a period ofradical transformation.

Over the roughly three hundred years of Tsarist rule in Siberia there were manyshifts in power relations and in the intensification of the state’s involvement in thelives of Evenkis. The pressure of colonization disrupted an already heterogeneousethnic landscape. In the later years of the Russian imperial era, new systems of politi-cal organization among the central Siberian Evenkis emerged, creatively reflectingimposed legal and economic structures. Older clan systems were altered and becamemore amenable entities for Tsarist bureaucratic practice.

PATTERNS OF RUSSIAN MOBILITY

In east-central Siberia the lands that lay beyond the Yenisey River were notbroached by Europeans until the beginning of the 16th century.

In 1614 the Mangazeya Cossacks imposed the fur-tax upon the Evenks livingon the Upper Tunguska [Angara]. In 1623, practically all the Evenks livingnear the Yenisey, on the Lower and Podkamennaya Tunguska, Vilyuy andChona were paying the tax. (Vasilevich and Smolyak, 1964, p. 623)

11The term “wander” (brodit’) came to be used in the classification of forms of mobility and economy,and was understood to be an even more primitive or backward state than nomadism.

12Yakut (Sakha) are another non-Russian people of Siberia, but are not a minority (small-numberedpeople) like the Evenki.

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Cossacks—the Siberian colonial forces of the Russian Empire—fronted a more orless systematic Russian invasion of Siberia that culminated in the late 18th century.The geographer Robert North notes that due to the value of the fur trade “and alsobecause the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde continued strong to the south . . . Russianactivities were virtually confined to the tayga” (North, 1978, p. 15). While the Musco-vite state was the prime mover in the colonization of Siberia, there existed significantties with private interests and initiative (Collins, 1991, p. 38). Exacting full control,for the state, over its representatives in distant Siberia resulted in the loss of alle-giance to Tsarist policy, endemic local corruption, and varying degrees of autonomy.Anderson (1995, p. 142) also noted that although the Russian tribute economy did notimpinge greatly upon the Evenkis’ autonomy, the growing presence of Russians in thetaiga did have an undeniable effect on Evenki economy and social life. Indeed, “thehistorical evidence indicates that, at least for many households, the coerced exchangeof furs expanded the use of space” (Anderson 1995, p. 142.). Tribute, trade, mission-ization, the imposition of state sanctioned political and legal structures, and generalcultural contact all contributed to a rapidly changing cultural landscape.

At the end of the 16th century, the first Cossacks crossed the Yenisey in the Northand established winter forts or blockhouses as sites for trade, the collection of tribute,and the enduring confirmation of Tsarist rule. Gurvich (1977, p. 4) wrote that in 1640Russians arrived at the lower Vilyuy winter fort and recorded ninety-five tribute-paying Yakuts out of a total 380 people. Over the following years other forts in theregion were established and the Tsarist presence in east-central Siberia solidified. Astrong military presence was vital in the subjugation and settlement of Siberia; theCossack police force hired by Moscow was governed by the voyevoda (military gov-ernor), who held considerable power in the early development of Siberia.

The strategy for colonization, given the immensity of Siberia, was to travel “alongriver routes, fortifying strategic points such as confluences and portages from oneriver system to another” (Collins, 1991, p. 39). Siberia’s river systems provided themost significant routes of travel for the Tsar’s Cossacks and civil servants, as well asindependent traders and missionaries. Turukhansk was strategically positioned at theconfluence of the Yenisey and Nizhnyaya Tunguska rivers. The Nizhnyaya Tunguskaand the Podkamennaya Tunguska provided deep penetration into the Central SiberianPlateau areas while the Yenisey was a major thoroughfare for riverine transport con-necting Siberia to Europe via the Kara sea. The Nizhnyaya Tunguska and Vilyuy riv-ers were a major east-west route for traffic between Yakutsk and Mangazeya-Turukhansk; this journey could take four to four-and-one-half months (Collins, 1991,p. 39).

Travel on the lesser rivers (like the Nizhnyaya Tunguska, Kochuchum, Vilyuy,and Podkamennaya Tunguska) necessitated flat-bottomed barges (doschaniks) thatwere powered by sail, oar, and hauled by humans or horses from trails on the forestedbanks. Raymond Fisher (1943, p. 174) observed that on journeys on larger rivers likethe Yenisey, “kochas, decked boats quite similar to doshchaniks, were used.” The riv-ers, of course, were not accessible by boat during the long winters. Even when there isno ice and snow there are only a few weeks, between the spring’s high waters and theautumn’s low waters, when barges can successfully navigate the rivers.

In the mid-1800s paddlewheel steamers arrived on the Siberian scene. For over 30years after their introduction “four firms connected with European Russia trading

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houses controlled virtually all the Siberian river steamers” (North, 1978, p. 47). Thesteamers became indisputably useful vehicles in the maintenance of Tsarist controlover the new colonies and presented new opportunities for missionization andresource extraction (Fig. 2). While valuable animal pelts continued to dominate north-ern Siberian trade, there occurred a steady rise of mineral exploration and exploita-tion. When the importance of the fur trade declined in the second half of the 19th cen-tury, alternative ventures were in a position to maintain the state’s interest in Siberia,including several gold mining sites.

Travel journals of the orthodox priest Father Mikhail Suslov from the late 1800sreport that much of the land south of Yessey remained unexplored by Russians, con-firming Vasilevich’s (1969) statement that the Lower and Podkamennaya Tunguskaswere relatively peaceful until the end of the 19th century. Vasilevich discussed a vari-ety of paths, highways, and routes that cut through the taiga in Siberia and the RussianFar East, noting that social and economic relations differed in places where there wereno major trade routes (Vasilevich, 1969, p. 180). The trade routes appear to have func-tioned as east-west corridors for the traffic of goods and people. As North (1978) indi-cated, the majority of the rivers navigable by barge in central Siberia run from thesouth to the north, which led to the development of overland trails to move goodsbetween forts, towns, construction sites, and the major riverine routes. Although tothe south the Moscow-Siberian highway reached Krasnoyarsk by 1735, there could beno parallel road building in the northern regions (North, 1978).13 With regard to over-land travel, Fisher (1943, p. 174) noted that it was “in many instances faster and moredirect, especially in winter on the snow, but such travel was feasible only for shortjourneys, since no extensive post system existed and the cost to an individual, or even

13To this day, despite modern road making technologies, there are few maintained roads.

Fig. 2. 1924 photograph of the steamer Krasnoyarets on the Turukhan River. Photographer I.M. Suslov. Courtesy of the Evenki Okrug Regional Museum.

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to a group, of long journeys by horse and cart or sledge was prohibitive.” Options foroverland travel north of the Nizhnyaya Tunguska were severely limited to reindeerconveyance, as horses were ill-suited to the densely wooded and marshy taiga.

Missionaries, traders, and state servants were obliged to seek the aid of guides andchauffeurs to ply the immense Ilimpii taiga. Guides (kaery) working in the tundra thatborders the north of the Ilimpii area are described in the following passage:

At the turn of the century, kaery hauled supplies and people at the behest ofless regimented institutions such as trading firms with government monopo-lies, tax-gathering Cossacks, or missionaries distributing the sacrament, sur-names, and ritual calendars. (Anderson, 2000b, p. 136)

This was the beginning of a local freight industry that persisted through to the1970s. With the modernization of the North in the period of high socialism, Evenkisnarrowed their service from guiding and hauling to guiding alone.14 What is impor-tant to consider here is that the 200 years or so of colonial encounter prior to the com-munist revolution was a time of great changes for the Evenkis due to imperial vio-lence, epidemics, epizootics, internecine wars, and the pressure of displacedindigenous peoples from other regions. The primary means of travel, however,remained localized because of the monopolization of taiga mobility through reindeerconveyance by Evenkis, Sakha/Yakut, and Dolgan peoples.

Following the Imperial Russian era, rapid technological and social change sweptthrough the former Russian Empire. Evenki peoples’ extensive travels were recast interms of Soviet modernity and in the context of industrial mechanization. Conse-quently travels were made not only according to traditional routes and trails on rein-deer saddle and sleigh, but were also undertaken as journeys in the modern Sovietstate, on motorboats and barges and in helicopters, trains, and airplanes.

THE SOVIET SYSTEM OF MECHANIZED TRAVEL

[T]he appearance of modern equipment in the taiga—aircraft, automotivevehicles, motorboats, portable movie projectors, radiotelegraphic communica-tions and the like—have resulted in deep changes in the personalities of thenatives in the taiga. (Tugolukov, 1963, p. 35)

The face of the old settlements, the nomadic encampments, and even the veryoccupations of the people underwent a profound change. (Rytkheu, 1980,p. 23)

The Soviet system of mechanized travel can be framed similarly to howShirokogoroff (1935) described Tungus mobility in the early 20th century, as a system

14I was told by one Evenki herder that he was hired by a group of “mamothologists” to guide themthrough the taiga. I later learned that he had accepted their employ not only for the money they would payhim but also to watch over them. Guiding has the naive implication of taking the passengers where theywant/need to go but it also has the covert implication of monitoring and limiting the passengers’ experi-ence. The herder was concerned that the paleontologists would discover that a stream on his territory(uchastok) was littered with high-quality coal.

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of paths or communications.15 The system is tightly bound to European moderni-ties—cultural logics that have particular commonalities and histories of dissemina-tion, interpretation, and co-optation. It was not, however, until the period of “highsocialism,” beginning in the late 1950s, that the celebrated triumphs of modernitywere really extended throughout the Soviet system of mechanized travel (Fig. 3).

In the latter part of the Soviet era, as industrialization and northern developmentexpanded to include the Yenisey basin, a system of state-approved corridors of travelemerged in conjunction with the mechanization of the means of conveyance, notably

15In context of pre-telegraph history, communication was synonymous with bodily transport, withspecial emphasis on the union of the subject and the object through space. It also operates as a synonym inRussian: svyaz’.

Fig. 3. Arrival/departure. Collograph by Craig Campbell. The cover of V. N. Uvachan’s 1971book has been used as the central image in this print. The image of reindeer herders waving to ahelicopter works today as both a reminder of the much-touted arrival of Soviet technology inthe North and as an ironic portrayal of the departure of this technology following the brutalwithdrawal of subsidies that once supported rural communities.

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aircraft, tracked vehicles, trucks, snowmachines, and motorboats. These travelsincluded regular flights between the taiga and remote settlements, remote settlementsand regional centers, and regional centers and major cities. In 1932 a 1600-kilometeraerial route was established between Krasnoyarsk and Dudinka. By 1935, Tura andBaykit were connected to the growing network of aerial navigation (Uvachan, 1971,p. 235). The revolution in transport brought Siberia and the Far East into much greatercontact with European Russia. This sustained contact, in turn, facilitated the Sovietstate’s policies toward the modernization and administration of indigenous peoples(Grant, 1995). Mongols and Buryats of Inner Asia had a similar experience:

Far from being a time of stability, the socialist period emerges here as a periodof almost ceaseless change. A common theme is collectivization, whichstarted in all areas of Inner Asia with small co-operatives, subsequently amal-gamated into large and more rigidly organised collectives or communes.(Humphrey and Sneath, 1999, p. 35)

A typical characterization of the Soviet economic and social reorganization markscollectivization and sedentarization as the most acute points of Soviet violencetoward Evenkis, their cultures, their economies, and, in this analysis, their system ofpaths.

[The] tragedy of the Evenkis began with the period of collectivization. At thispoint the Kolkhozy [collective farms] became the owners of the Tayga lands,later it was the sovkhozy and gosprokhozy. Forest inhabitants lost the basis oflife—their clan and family lands. (Grigorevna, 1992 quoted in Fondahl, 1998,p. 57)

Although most scholars start their analysis of the incursion of state forms of socialand economic organization with the Civil War that followed the communist revolu-tion (Fondahl, 1998; Pika, 1999), others note that the most radical changes to every-day life occurred in the 1960s—the era of industrialization (Anderson, 2000b, p. 37).An important beginning for the establishment of a distinctly Soviet system of mecha-nized travel was the removal of women and children from the taiga. While organiza-tional changes made significant contributions to the alteration in the mobility of manyEvenkis, it was not until the state’s economists, scientists, and bureaucrats sought tomodernize the forest economies that the Evenkis’ system of paths, maintained byhunters and herders, was truly challenged (ibid.).

Soviet modernization and development of northern regions involved both theindustrial expansion and exploitation of natural resources and the reorganization oflocal industries (Kuoljok, 1985, p. 51-52). Kuoljok (1985, p. 52), however, makes therather naive point that industrialization had not threatened “reindeer-breeding” in theSoviet North because of a nationality policy that preserved “the specific character ofeach people.” The other reason for this, she states, is that polluting industrial com-plexes were not extensively cast upon the Siberian landscape. Their concentration inindustrial centers, along with the “shortage of roads and railways in the North” (ibid.)supposedly protected reindeer industries. However, Anderson’s ethnography ofthe Khantayskoe Ozero Evenkis in the Taymyr Peninsula provides some preliminary

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evidence of the broad effects of heavy metal pollution on reindeer herds (Anderson2000b, p. 62-63). Development in Yamal, and nuclear testing on the border of Yakutia(Republic of Sakha) and Evenkia in the Vilyuy basin would also suggest that in Soviettimes ecological preservation was certainly not the case (Golovnev and Osherenko,1999; Yegorova, 1995, Crate, 2002).

For Siberia in general, the momentum of industrialization accelerated after 1956(Kuoljok, 1985, p. 52). Between 1955 and 1956 “the ‘land tenure regulation’ (zem-leustroitelnaia) expedition of the Ministry of Rural Economy of the RSFSR gave eachkolkhoz concrete recommendations in the use of reindeer pastures” in Evenkia(Kovyazin and Kuzakov, 1963, p. 96). The actual implementation of these recommen-dations was yet to follow. In the Taymyr “[b]eginning in the late 1960s, a . . . divisionof labour was enforced by the state. The entire stock of reindeer was divided into sep-arate herds to be managed by professional brigades” (Anderson, 1995, p. 57). Thesocialist reorganization of Evenki economies was an important part of what Pika(1999, p. 96) pointedly referred to as the “marked experiments of social engineeringaimed at destroying nomadic ways of life.” Breaking Evenki autonomies was meantto produce good Soviet citizens. In the words of Evenki historian V.N. Uvachan, “Thepeoples of the North, as equals, have entered into a new historic community—theSoviet people” (Uvachan, 1971, p. 292).

Through the period of high socialism, Ekonda’s economy was dominated by moreor less compartmentalized land-based activities such as hunting, trapping, and rein-deer herding. The government established a central sovkhoz tied to the village admin-istration including a fur farm, and the introduction of cows, pigs, and chickens to rep-licate southern diets. There was no hospital but the local nurse-practitioner andmidwifery clinic (feld’sherskiy-akusherstvennyy punkt) was staffed full-time andstocked with medicines. Ekonda inhabitants had regular visits from health care pro-fessionals, including general practitioners, dentists, and eye doctors, and from pho-tographers and entertainment troupes alike. The village culture club was staffed full-time and had facilities for musical instruction, volleyball and badminton, dances, andlarge meetings, and a stage and screen for movies and drama productions.

In addition to being more connected to the rest of the Soviet Union by incomingflows of subsidies, news, and professional services, inhabitants also had access topaths leading beyond the Siberian taiga. One reindeer herder that I met in 1995had won a socialist competition for overfulfilling his production quotas by nearly200 percent. His prize was to travel to the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal. While theSoviet state occasionally allotted significant rewards of travel and vacation throughsocialist competitions, most people had access only to the Soviet corridors of travelwithin the USSR. The travel experiences of many people in Siberia during the Sovietera were truly extensive in an increasingly well-travelled socialist world (Rethmann2000).16

Concerted industrial exploitation of the northern regions began in central Siberiain the 1970s and 1980s (Pika, 1999, p. 90). The Evenki Autonomous Okrug was “notflooded with a wave of incomers, or priezhi, until the 1970s [nonetheless] radicalshifts in Evenk social organization and traditional culture from the 1920s to 1990s”

16This point has been noted by several ethnographers of Siberian peoples, but see especially the writ-ings of Petra Rethmann, an ethnographer who works in Kamchatka with indigenous Koryak women.

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resulted from the intensification of state control (Bloch, 1996, p. 43). Industrialmodernization was the prerequisite for the success of socialism. For the paradigm ofmodern socialism to “make sense, however, a concept of traditional culture wasemphasized to set the modernization process off in relief” (ibid., p. 66). This is graph-ically portrayed in the juxtaposition of modern and traditional technologies, or, in theMarxist-Leninist language of the day, “progressive” and “backward” technologies.All aspects of the Soviet economy were expected to conform to the new standards ofscientific management, including the most “traditional” occupations like reindeerherding, hunting, trapping, and fishing.

“Collective farms began to organize their reindeer herds by sex and age, todevelop rational grazing circuits and to improve the breed” as early as the mid-1950s,and science-based management schemes were developed to replace what were per-ceived to be “primitive” and “non-rational” forms (Tugolukov 1963, p. 28). Until the1970s, reindeer breeding was an extension of the transport economy, supportingcountless other enterprises like hunting, fishing, trapping, state surveys, militaryforays, geological explorations, delivery of medicine and food, and the conveyance ofpeople.

The reindeer is a draft animal indispensable in commercial hunting of fur ani-mals. Reindeer transportation is used by geological surveyors, prospectingexpeditions, in land management and for other purposes. Reindeer are used totransport freight to remote and otherwise inaccessible regions. (Zhigunov,1968, p. 1)

In Taymyr, “in order to support the hunting economy in the era before snowmachines (pre-1970s) reindeer were bred, trained, and kept for transport (and not formeat)” (Anderson, 1995, p. 57). There was a growing emphasis on economies basedon modern science and machines, which sought to rationalize backwards, inefficient,and non-socialist traditional economic practices.

To undertake this massive transition in the north the popularization and intro-duction of scientific achievements and the experience of leading breeders, andfinally, training qualified reindeer breeding experts . . . [were needed]; thesemeasures would improve the efficiency of reindeer breeders, increase the out-put of reindeer meat and other products, cut the cost of production, and raisethe level of reindeer husbandry. (Zhigunov, 1968, p. 4)

One assessment of the division of labor required for “an economy founded uponreindeer for transport, labour of people and animals maximized the mobility of indi-viduals across a vast territory and thus minimized the capacity of the state to controlthe structure of work units, the number of deer, and the uses to which they are put”(Anderson, 1995, p. 57). In the industrialization and mechanization of northern “agri-culture,” the capacity of Evenkis to resist and creatively interpret state forms of socialorganization diminished. The compartmentalization of “professions” gave the stategreater control over mobility. Self-determination in the traditional economies of hunt-ing and herding was undermined by the conflicting scientifically legitimated strate-gies for herd management, hunting, and fishing introduced by the new “experts” from

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urban universities and colleges. “The gospromkhozy17 were set up to concentrate spe-cifically on hunting, and had little incentive to encourage reindeer herding, other thanas an auxiliary activity that supported hunting (as a means of transport)” (Fondahl,1998, p. 74). In the 1970s snow machines began to appear as an alternative to reindeertransport.

Land tenure regulation and “scientific management” marked the beginning of newmanagement strategies that came to dominate in the 1970s. Aside from the ideologi-cal motivations, the two main driving incentives of collectivization were the need toproduce surplus foods and other goods for growing urban populations in the RussianNorth (Fondahl, 1998, p. 58) and the creation of industrial employment in regions thatwere previously undeveloped (Anderson, 1991, p. 13). The notion of cultural and eco-nomic “backwardness” was clearly implicated in this effort, a lingering irritation fromthe earliest days of Soviet development policy. Herding and hunting brigades werepushed to produce ever greater quantities of meat to feed growing administrative cen-tres like Tura.18 A report entitled “Development of the Technology for ProducingReindeer in the USSR” (Koshelev and Mukhachev, 1986) outlines the thoroughlymodern and scientific approach to reindeer herding in Siberia:

The prospects for development in this field [of reindeer breeding] are deter-mined by important economic goals such as strengthening northern economy,improving the prosperity of indigenous peoples, [and] establishing a local foodsupply. . . . Thanks to Lenin’s national policy which is being carried out by theSoviet government, reindeer breeding is developing successfully . . . (ibid.,p. 341)

Throughout the Soviet era, the Evenki system of paths was perpetuated wherepossible in the cycle of production herding, and most importantly in commercialhunting activities. In most cases the indigenous system of paths was not supporteddue, for example, to the inaccessibility of the land for many women and children.Geographic shifts from forest to settlement to consolidated settlement “served todecrease the range of a woman’s activities, her cultural and economic options andflexibility, and to channel younger women increasingly away from any level ofinvolvement in such traditional activities” (Fondahl, 1998, p. 69).

Ilimpii Evenkis refer often to one particular story that highlights the state’sbotched attempts to manage hunting practices.19 In the mid-1980s the gospromkhozTurinskiy, with the assistance of the Evenki Okrug Department of Agriculture and theScientific Institute for Rural Economy (based in Noril’sk), set up long drift-net fences

17Gospromkhoz translates roughly as “state-trade-economy,” and could be described as a governmen-tal agency or corporation that is concerned with the rural economy, and has been present through both theSoviet and post-Soviet eras. John Ziker offers this definition: “Government Hunting/Fishing/TrappingEnterprise, generally larger than a sovkhoz or kolkhoz and administered by the Ministry of Hunting of theRussian Federation” (Ziker, 2002, p. 169).

18In Tura today, reindeer meat does not garner as high a price as imported meats. As early as the lastdecade of the Soviet era, wild and domestic reindeer meat were reported to have been sent off to feed prisonpopulations on the Yenisey.

19It is, however, not clear if Evenki hunters feel that management itself is faulty or if it is simply theineptitude of the current managers. Looking to other subarctic examples (Fienup-Riordan 1990; Feit 1979,1991), one is tempted to read the reaction as a point of intercultural contention.

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across the tundra to funnel wild herds of migratory sea caribou (morskiye) to conve-nient stations where they could be shot en masse and “efficiently” harvested.20 Theproject was eventually abandoned but the nets were left strewn across the tundra,altering the caribou’s migration routes. The relative wealth of the northern neighbour-ing village, Yessey, is partially linked to its proximity to the caribou’s current migra-tion route.21 Evenki hunters who, prior to that time, were able to hunt the wild herdsof sea caribou without travelling great distances, have since had to travel hundreds ofkilometers north to encounter the sea caribou. The logistical difficulty of making sucha trip, given the failure of mechanical transport (due to the inaccessibility of themachines, the parts, and the fuel to run them) and limited access to domestic reindeer,keeps many Evenki within much more limited bounds and forces them to rely onscarce moose and non-migratory forest caribou for meat.

DE-MOBILIZATION, TECHNOLOGICAL DYSFUNCTION, AND THE ROOTS OF 21ST CENTURY ISOLATION

Although a mixed forest economy did not produce enough wealth to maintainimported modern technologies, the professional and compartmentalized late Sovietsocialist economy relied on mechanization subsidized by the state—a standard redis-tributive practice of the Soviet centralized economy. Subsidies were essential tomechanized production and further alienated rural Evenki from production activities.When communism collapsed in 1991, the Soviet system of mechanized conveyancehad replaced traditional Evenki ways of moving on the taiga. While some Evenkiscreatively manipulated the new system to their own ends, others were tyrannized byit. The new system was entrenched in enormous networks of centralized bureaucracy.Technologies of mobility depended on this centralization to access the remote settle-ments, now the permanent home to the “nomads” and “wanderers” of the taiga.

Soviet sedentarization and village consolidation programs dramatically altered thenorthern landscape. Soviet-era women and children, who formerly traveled withhousehold herds, were socially redefined as settled villagers. Men also ceased totravel nomadically and were deemed semi-nomadic sedentarized shift-workers. Themobility of women and children in the taiga was generally limited to seasonally basedshort resource-acquisition trips. They traveled by motorboat to collect berries and fishand sometimes by helicopter to visit relatives working in distant reindeer herdingcamps. Many men, engaged in the herding and hunting, split their time betweenworking on the land and living in the villages. Trips to the countryside were oftenmade with mechanized vehicles. The necessity of rapid conveyance is a concurrentdevelopment with the Soviet landscape reformations. Sedentarization and consolida-tion of villages was made possible through mechanized conveyance and, in turn,necessitated the mechanization of travel. Machine travel and settlements are intercon-nected elements in the Soviet landscape of east-central Siberia.

20“Sea caribou” is a local appellation for the migratory reindeer that spend part of the year in the tun-dra and the other in the taiga; they are also called morskiye by the Taymyr Evenkis in Khantayskoye Ozero(Anderson 1995).

21This is a point aggravated by the fact that Ekonda Evenkis report that the sea deer used to migratesouth of their own settlement, a claim supported in Glafira Vasilevich’s ethnography (1969, p. 55).

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In the post-Soviet era, the state’s violence toward the Evenki system of paths isevident in the chaotic socio-economic landscape. The very machines that were usedin the campaign against Evenkis’ “backwardness,” “irrationality,” and “primitivism”in the Soviet era are now dysfunctional and constitute ongoing impediments to cul-tural renewal and local empowerment. The sedentarization of the Evenki people intocentral amalgamated villages led to the indigenous abandonment of many taigaregions. The so-called “wandering” (brodyachiy) Evenkis were given fixed homes,names, and numbers. Although the professionalization of reindeer herding and itsassociated state support worked to maintain some of the extensive land use practicedby pre-Soviet Evenkis and the growing attachments to the settlement, the post-Sovietreduction of these subsidies now works to diminish Evenki people’s ability to travelextensively on the land.

DE-MOBILIZATION AND EVENKIS IN THE POST-SOVIET ERA

Soviet-period industrialization, which began in east-central Siberia in the 1960sand 1970s, ended in 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, the situationfor remote rural residents of Ekonda, Chirinda, Olenek, and Yessey deteriorated tosuch a degree that the International Red Cross has had on occasion to deliver emer-gency supplies of food and medicine. The situation for many urban Evenkis in Turawas not much better and sometimes worse due to a crumbling welfare system anderoded networks and corridors of transport that had once facilitated travel as well ascash and commodity remittances. In addition, the general condition of economic andsocial crisis in the Ilimpii area has been worsened by conflict-ridden district politics.With the displacement of the Evenki system of paths with the Soviet system of mech-anized travel, social well-being became contingent on access to mechanical vehicles,which are, in the post-Soviet economy, expensive and scarce.

The Evenki Autonomous Okrug operates administratively between territorial(kray) and federal governments. This position generates conflicting obligations andoverlapping administrative operations, evident in the bitter political feuds of 1999–2000. In late summer, the local media reported that fuel for heating and electricity, onwhich Tura is entirely dependent, were not being shipped up the Yenisey and Nizh-nyaya Tunguska rivers, a move that was popularly thought to be a contest of powerbetween the governor of Krasnoyarsk Kray and the head of the administration ofEvenkia. The contest resulted in a civil emergency due to the failure of the adminis-tration to have shipments of fuel delivered from Krasnoyarsk, a crisis highlightingboth the fragility of northern transport systems and the instability of de-localization.

The efforts of Soviet and post-Soviet road-building engineers, which facilitateddevelopment and modernization in other rural areas of Russia, are greatly hindered ineast-central Siberia due to the shifting permafrost and bogs of the subarctic. Whilewinter roads require constant maintenance and have only limited seasonal availability,year-round road travel has been an impossible goal. In east-central Siberia railwayshave never posed a viable option for travel. The difficulty of organizing mechanizedoverland conveyance in the taiga has ensured the ongoing importance of reindeer fornon-subsidized travel in Evenkia where a lone winter road connects Ilimpii settle-ments.

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Like the rivers throughout the Tsarist and early Soviet eras, the view from the win-ter road allows only the most limited understanding of the taiga landscape. Much ofthe Ilimpii taiga, in the post-Soviet era, is rarely visited by non-local travelers, villag-ers, or even hunters and herders. Local travel for some Evenkis, however, continues toreproduce traditional routes and trails that are maintained by the movement of huntersand herders on reindeer, motor boats, and snowmachines. Anderson (1995, p. 201)observed that “[r]ather than interpreting an extensive land use system as the result of avulnerability to hunger and poverty, it is better to understand Evenki movements asdetermined by a multiplicity of strategies.” Such strategies in the post-Soviet era,along with options for resistance to hegemonic practices, organizational structures,and technological systems of the colonial state, have dwindled in response to thebreakdown of the redistributive corridors for capital and commodities that had for-merly been organized through the centrally planned economy. The lack of opportuni-ties for the creative manipulation of non-local resources from remote settlements inrural Siberia presents daunting and improbable grounds for local empowerment.

The following narrative account from my field work serves to illustrate oneinstance of travel for Evenkis in east-central Siberia. It shows the difficulty of negoti-ating movement between the town and the taiga, two radically different social land-scapes.

On one trip to the taiga, some Evenki friends and I traveled by boat up theKochuchum River. We left from the co-operatively guarded docks of Tura to asite roughly fifty kilometres away. It was early autumn and my host, Branat,was returning to his small reindeer herd in the taiga. When we arrived at ourdestination near the mouth of a small stream, there was no one present to greetus, despite having arranged a meeting in advance. Climbing up the bank andentering the forest, we came upon a path that led into a stand of larch trees andfragrant bushes of labrador tea. We hiked several kilometers towards the campsite and, upon entering the camp we saw a well-established site with manyamenities, including a conical summer tent, called a d’iu in Evenki. Thosepresent were Branat’s wife, their daughter and her husband and their child, aswell as a junior herder working as a hired hand. Branat’s family was nearlyready to leave after a short three-week visit. It was the end of summer and thefamily was heading back to Tura to meet work and school obligations. Travel-ing from the camp to the bank of the Kochuchum, Branat’s wife rode on afreight sleigh, while the daughter rode on reindeer saddle, as did the juniorherder, carrying the baby in his arms. We gradually made our way back to theriver. A second boat showed up soon thereafter to help carry the family back toTura. A fire was going and tea made. One deer was slaughtered and divided upto all present, especially those who gave their boats for use.

The trip is important for this exploration of Evenki systems of mobility, becauseBranat originally tried to negotiate the use of a helicopter for the journey. When hewas unsuccessful in securing a helicopter, he tried to convince someone to take us inby overland tracked vehicle. These were both forms of transport common under theSoviet system of mechanized mobility. Ultimately, Branat succeeded only in nego-tiating the use of a couple of motorboats to return to his camp and have his extended

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family returned to the settlement. Such accommodations are becoming routine in theherder’s shrinking repertoire of transport options. The price for the use of boats wascostly, as it was paid in meat from one of Branat’s dwindling herd.

CONCLUSION

De-localization and the fragility of northern mechanization is a byproduct ofSoviet modernization and development. Alternately, it can be characterized as a situa-tion of delicate contingency on de-localized technological devices and systems. Theidiom of localized and de-localized technologies, developed by Pelto (1973, p. 166)in The Snowmobile Revolution, is “a large number of interrelated processes . . . bestunderstood in terms of a very generalized loss of local autonomy through the growthof dependence on a worldwide system of resource allocation and political power.”Elsewhere he defines de-localization “as the tendency for any territorially definedpopulation to become increasingly dependent on resources, information flow andsocioeconomic linkages with the systems of energy and resources outside their partic-ular area” (ibid., 1975, p. 31). Expanding on Pelto’s work, I would tie de-localizationto the general fragility of mechanized transport throughout the circumpolar North.The situation of crisis in rural Siberia is particularly critical because of the heightenedfragility of inter-regional transport systems in the post-Soviet era. The degree of de-localization effected in Siberia under regimes of Soviet development have left veryfew places untouched and has resulted in an expansive socialist landscape that fails tooperate under market conditions.

De-localization is perhaps not a problem in places where networks of distributionand exchange are resilient. More southerly and central locales, although sufferingeven greater de-localization than remote northern settlements, can cope due to exten-sive transport systems resilient to crisis. In contrast, the road systems in east-centralSiberia are exceedingly treacherous and traversable for less than six months out of theyear. River systems are the cheapest forms of long-distance transport but, like theroad system, cannot offer year-round, reliable routes for the movement of goods. Dueto the scarcity of transport corridors and their high vulnerability to late frosts, earlythaws, hazardous rapids, and rising fuel costs, I argue that east-central Siberian trans-port corridors are fragile, and that the fragility of distribution networks combinedwith extensive de-localization has led to general technological dysfunction and thede-mobilization of rural Evenkis.

Geographical and social isolation and the failure of transport networks were cen-tral problems that came about after the disintegration of the Soviet system. The modesof transport and travel that occur on the land, on the river, and in the air—in additionto the built environments and social landscapes—contextualize Evenki people’s ruralexperience. Each of these modes has been integral to the Soviet projects of northernindustrialization and professionalization. They have also been integral to the collapseof the “spatial separation between village settlements and forest herding-huntingcamps” (Kwon, n.d., p. 2). More generally, these projects of socialist re-constructionwere integral to the displacement of the traditional system of paths and have had theeffect, in the post-Soviet era, of de-mobilizing Evenkis—isolating rural settlements ineast-central Siberia. The kind of isolation experienced by rural Evenkis in Siberia canbe understood as a process of ghettoization. The idea of rural ghettos—which has

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been effectively used in the United States (Davidson, 1996)—makes for a useful anal-ogy not only in this context but throughout the circumpolar North. For Evenkis, thistranslates into crumbling infrastructure, poor access to food and medicine, and limitsto social and spatial mobility, all of which contribute to dire conditions of impoverish-ment, ill health, and depression (among other things). As this paper shows, the settle-ments of rural Ilimpii are built environments that were produced through massivestate expenditures and projects throughout much of the 20th century. The current pre-dicament of ghettoized indigenous peoples in Evenkia must be understood as abyproduct of these environments. It is only through an examination of travel practicesthat isolation and de-mobilization in east-central Siberia can be properly understoodas being the result of enduring technological systems rather than being a particulardeficiency in local peoples’ ability to organize and alter their situation or even localgovernments’ ability to effect change in the short term.

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